Unpopular opinion: Mercy's viability

I do see she has some advantages like mobility and steady heal. Res.
But is Valkrie really ok? Seems less praised than Coalescence

If I had my way I would lower the duration of Valk to like 12s, maybe make the target of the main beam receive 70hps, and adding either range increase or a reduction in cast time for Rez during Valk.

But that’s like as far as I’d go. As for if her 50hps beam outside of Valk needs a boost gotta definitely wait and see.

That’s like it though. No Mass Rez type stuff, no Zen/Lucio style defensive ult.

Oh. And reducing the time it takes to swap weapons. Make that like .5s.

Depends from your definition of “ok”. Coalescence outputs a lot more healing on each individual player, hurts enemies through shields, and heals Moira in the process.

With Valkyrie, it’s always 60 hps or 30% boost on each player, or infinite ammo pistol with up to 200 dps, if all your projectile shots are headshots. Most likely teammates won’t even notice you used it.

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Ok like, does she have any niche using it against other supports.
Ultimates are important I think.

Well, if you happen to have teammates, who never group up, that ultimate helps you to reach them everywhere. As for teams, who do, you would be better with different healer.

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One, it’s called empathy, clearly you don’t have it.

Secondly, because if-and-when your favorite hero(es) get fundamentally reworked to something that isn’t what you prefer, the changes will hurt a lot and echo-chamber of anonymous people will ridicule you for having your dissenting opinion.

It’s then that you will understand how tiresome it is to bang pots to attempt to address the issue of satisfaction, and no one will listen to you because they keep confusing satisfaction with balance (just as you’re doing now).

Actually…

There’s very solid game theory literature on it.

If you want to implement a change, it’s not always about being better. Sometimes you just want a lateral shift in terms of game balance, but with more engaging gameplay that allows players to;

  • express themselves in new ways not previously possible
  • encourage more creative gameplay to tackle existing and new problems
  • increase excitement both for the player, their opponent(s), and for anyone spectating

That’s what Mercy players are asking for, but because they aren’t eloquently describing it as such, you’re confusing it for emotion and entitlement.

Just based on this criteria alone, we know that Valkyrie, in its current state, doesn’t do any of the above.

  1. Mercy isn’t more expressive

When the rework was initially released, she WAS more expressive. Fighter Jet Mercy, Rez tokens, and chain beams gave Mercy more options and choices than just her base kit of heal and damage boost…

Each one of these was removed for balance sake until only one remained, which is fine… balance is necessary after all. However, the one that remained is just a copy of an already existing ultimate, Supercharger.

Lack of uniqueness kills expressiveness. Which is not fine.

  1. Mercy isn’t more creative

Because chainbeams are the only thing to do, it’s entirely min-max-able. Mercy was called a reverse-kite/moth for a reason… Valkyrie reduces her gameplay to 3 tracks of mind – pre-emptive damage boosting before a teamfight, reactive healing during a teamfight, or attempting Battle Mercy.

All of these are so straight-forward, that it doesn’t let players tackle problems in creative ways… everyone just kind of accepts being stuck in a bad position because they can’t do anything else except those 3 tracks.

  1. Mercy isn’t more exciting.

This is the one that is most talked about, and is immediately evident even in non-Mercy players.

She’s boring. She’s a reverse kite. There’s nothing to do except play in the moment, and it’s not even a let down if you die during Valkyrie.

Going Battle Mercy is the only source of excitement, but in-so-doing, you’re doing your team a disservice by not fulfilling your heal/damage boost support role.


Like I said, not many people can put it as eloquently as this.

But it’s more than just raw emotion and “feelings”.

The fact that you can’t even pick up on these details pretty clearly proves that you haven’t been listening or even attempted to understand why its unsatisfactory, and used your noncommitence as reinforcement to ignore and disqualify any argument.

Edit - Which brings us to this…

I think I pretty clearly and considerately explained why Mercy’s kit has reduced interactions with the game as a whole comparative to her pre-rework and first iteration of the rework, and why it’s necessary to address not from the angle of balance, but from the angle of satisfaction.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know Mercy feels underwhelming (and can still perform well).

Some people are just blinded by their personal feelings on the matter that they refuse to pay attention to what is being said.

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Thank you brokenstyli. Succinct and eloquently put.

If you forget about your other teammates, flying is exciting. But looking down from the sky to see lots of dead teammates kind of ruins all excitement.

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67 likes.
67!

All who dislike the idea of Mercy in high tier liked this

Wow… this time I would wish for a “favorite” option in the forum. This actually hits the nail right on its head!

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And yet, her actual healing is fine.

It’s probably a result of the fact that unlike some other healers her healing is extremely lenient, the beam even pierces walls and goes behind her to a degree.

This is why her actual healing done is quite alright, despite the halved raw throughput compared to other healers.

On top of that, the burst healers dont have that burst available on command at all times, while Mercy has her healing consistently all the time, thats the point.
Ana and Moira give up consistency in favour of bursts of healing when cooldowns are up. Which lends itself well to tank heavy comps as they have more HP to survive till said cooldowns are up as-well as having more healing during that time to heal the big hp pools.
Which is why off-healers exist to supplement.

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So since off-healers are the ones supplementing the steady healing, that means Brigitte is a main healer since she’s all burst, yes? And an Ana just continuously firing at someone is pseudo-steady other than the reloads, so she’s an off-healer?

(the designation is garbage is what I’m trying to say, no rules you try to find will make any sense)

Not really sure what you are trying to say with any of that lol :thinking:

Mercy’s healing is fine, she just isn’t suited to healing big HP pools like Ana/Moira.
Once goats dies, Mercy will be in a better spot once lower hp heroes join the “meta”.

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I think you know this is not true. Example: when they made changes to Pharah they specifically stated that it was due to balancing differences between PC and console and the splash damage that Pharah had prior to the change was too devastating on console. Also, if you go to something like Overbuff you are going to see significantly different pickrates for different heroes for PC versus console…

I think I’m gonna take anything you say from hereon with a grain of salt. You just lost my respect…

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I think this is a good point. Right now, Mercy is actually a pretty hard hero. I’m a gm/top 500 Sombra main but I couldn’t get out of diamond on my Mercy one trick account if my life depended on it. Sure, she doesn’t have to aim, but she has to manage a lot of things, and she’s not very forgiving like other supports

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Mercy is fine right now I really agree. Just cuz she isnt a must pick 100% anymore doesnt mean she is underpowered. She is OP in the right hands AAAAAAAAAND in the right comp. No longer 100%must pick = good ; if mercy doesnt work SWITCH

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See Mercy is great in higher tiers where people know what they’re doing.

We’re talking about a game that has players with varying levels of skill. Our experiences in the same game may be vastly different.
People playing on PC vs console will have a difference experience with Mercy. Personally I find Mercy is useful and like you say more capable of solo healing than any other support but my problem with her is no matter how good you are with her you can’t provide enough for you team on your own to make a meaningful difference or impact in a lot of fights (staying alive and keeping the healing consistent is her biggest asset to the team). This is more prevalent in quick play.

For example in quick play, I’ll often be the last to die, gold healing (as always) watching as my Valk is vastly ineffective due to our team being so split or just taking too much damage. The idea of pistoling is out of the question because leaving your team for more than 3 seconds at a time will get people killed. And even after all the constant beam juggling, clutch heals and mid fight rezzing you still lose the game. On the flip side when we win I feel unsatisfied because I know I’m very consistent with Mercy so the only real thing that’s affected the outcome is our team was good and it allowed ,me to flourish as Mercy. I’d like some carry potential that helps me swing fights in our favour. I’d like to be excited that I have my ult not just this MEH feeling because its so trash in QP. I’d like my basic ability (rez) to not feel like a chore to use or be this butt-clenching moment of “will I die or will I not”. Mercy is viable but it doesn’t mean she’s perfect.

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Zarya being niche at the highest level of play and being fine everywhere else means that overall, she’s fine.

Mercy is niche literally everywhere. Now that alone does not mean that she absolutely needs changes… but maybe look into it.

Then you look into it… and realize that Mercy’s game play has been complained about non stop since her rework. That’s in spite of her being OP for a while. If you manage to make a hero OP and people STILL hate playing as her… that should raise the largest, most red flag you’ve got.

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